Amit Mediratta to hold new exhibition in The House Hotel

By Kernan Andrews Galway Advertiser, Thu, Jun 18, 2009

STARLIGHT AND The Dancer, the new exhibition from Galway based artist Amit Mediratta, will open at The House Hotel on Monday at 6pm.

The show is specifically designed for the exhibition space within so that it fits in with the hotel décor. It will feature a series of nude photographs of Amit’s girlfriend, Anna Zolnierkiewicz, most of which were spontaneously shot in a Paris hotel room. The centrepiece work, entitled Ascension, is a large-scale depiction of a Sierpinski Triangle. Amit is also a swing dancer and there will be photos of him dancing by Carol Kennedy.

“The exhibition is to be another chapter in my ongoing autobiography: both a self-portrait and too a meditation on the human condition,” says Amit, who admits the show will be “sexually-charged”.

“Some elements of the exhibition may shock, with some pieces containing daring, sexually-explicit, content – yet this is not the purpose of my works,” he says. “Making art for me, is about freedom: freedom of expression, freedom from fear, censorship, and control.”

Ascension took eight months to complete and is the “result of prolonged periods of isolation in my studio without human contact...a journey through the lands of my imagination”.

The section of the show entitled The Tattered Shoes of the Dancer will feature four tattered pairs of dancing shoes in a gilt frame. “They signify both the many thousands of wonderful dances I have had and the underlying realisation of my own mortality,” says Amit.

Starlight And The Dancer will also mark the publication of Amit’s latest collection of poetry, Ode to Kouros, a series of self-portraits and observations on contemporary Ireland. The House Hotel will provide canapés and wine for the opening night and there will be live music from The Jazz Addicts.